Ben
29th April 2005, 06:36 PM
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22919
HISTORY WILL REPEAT itself with HSDPA - a faster version of 3G, according to market watchers, Informa Telecoms.
The very same operators who had to delay launching their 3G (W-CDMA) networks in 2003 and 2004, will have exactly the same problem with HSDPA, Informa says.
HSDPA is W-CDMA's answer to Wi-Fi (802.11b) but offers only a high speed download link. The high speed uplink version is still way off.
Despite promises from Samsung, LG and NEC, there won't be any HSDPA compatible handset in large commercial volumes until mid-2006, claimed Informa senior analyst, John Everington.
Consequently operators will have to launch with just HSDPA PC data cards. Everington predicts that US operator, Cingular Wireless, will be the first to offer HSDPA. In Europe, O2 (which launched its 3G network with just data cards) hopes to be the first to offer HSDPA.
Former W-CDMA champion, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, has announced delays to its HSDPA roll out and is now expected to launch the technology in Q3-Q4 2006.
Such delays are giving the Chinese version of 3G - TD-SCDMA - a good chance to catch up. It no longer looks like the 'also-ran' it appeared to be just 12 months ago.
I don't know about you, but 2006 is only next year! We're only just getting started using what 3G has to offer, there's really not that much of a rush that we need HSDPA handsets right now. First we need some decent content to actually make mobile data consumption appealing, and some decent tariffs to make it practical.
HISTORY WILL REPEAT itself with HSDPA - a faster version of 3G, according to market watchers, Informa Telecoms.
The very same operators who had to delay launching their 3G (W-CDMA) networks in 2003 and 2004, will have exactly the same problem with HSDPA, Informa says.
HSDPA is W-CDMA's answer to Wi-Fi (802.11b) but offers only a high speed download link. The high speed uplink version is still way off.
Despite promises from Samsung, LG and NEC, there won't be any HSDPA compatible handset in large commercial volumes until mid-2006, claimed Informa senior analyst, John Everington.
Consequently operators will have to launch with just HSDPA PC data cards. Everington predicts that US operator, Cingular Wireless, will be the first to offer HSDPA. In Europe, O2 (which launched its 3G network with just data cards) hopes to be the first to offer HSDPA.
Former W-CDMA champion, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, has announced delays to its HSDPA roll out and is now expected to launch the technology in Q3-Q4 2006.
Such delays are giving the Chinese version of 3G - TD-SCDMA - a good chance to catch up. It no longer looks like the 'also-ran' it appeared to be just 12 months ago.
I don't know about you, but 2006 is only next year! We're only just getting started using what 3G has to offer, there's really not that much of a rush that we need HSDPA handsets right now. First we need some decent content to actually make mobile data consumption appealing, and some decent tariffs to make it practical.